evening conversation full of morose musings on the war that gradually descended into slurred and potentially treasonous commentaries on the nature of their queen. Sella, ever a patient soul, had forborne it all with a stoic good humour and Nortah, despite greeting most mornings with a befuddled and aching head, had attended to his teaching duties with a determined diligence. The building of the new schoolhouse had been his idea, paid for with a grant of monies from the Tower Lord. For a time his drinking diminished as he oversaw the construction, but it had only been partially complete when Sella fell ill.
Promise me, she had said when Vaelin sat by her bedside for the last time. Her face was tense with pain as she made the signs, hands still gloved even then. He is your brother, she told him, seeing the reluctance he hadn’t managed to keep from his face. Promise me. You will not let him destroy himself.
“My lord?”
Vaelin blinked, finding Cara standing a few feet away. She wore a plain gown and shawl of dark fabric, hair bound up although a few wayward coils twisted in the stiff sea breeze. Vaelin was struck by the contrast she made to the often frightened but determinedly brave girl who had followed him across the ice. As one of the more celebrated Gifted in the Realm, she enjoyed a position of considerable respect at the Point, not to say authority despite the fact that she continually refused to serve on the Town Council. In contrast to her fellow townsfolk, she always greeted Vaelin with an open smile of genuine welcome, but not today. Instead, her expression mixed forced solicitude with guarded expectation.
“Cara,” he said. “I’ve told you before, there’s no need for formality when we’re alone.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the gaggle of children emerging from the schoolhouse. Most were hurrying home amidst a chatter of horseplay and laughter, but a few lingered to stare in blank curiosity at the Tower Lord conversing with their teacher. “Off with you lot!” Cara called to them with an impatient flick of her wrist. “Don’t stand and gawp when your parents are waiting with food on the table.”
From the way they fled in the face of her strident tones Vaelin divined that Cara’s style of teaching was something of a contrast to Nortah’s. His brother had always enjoyed an effortless ability to capture the attention and respect of his pupils. Cara, it seemed, felt the need of a more commanding approach.
“You have something for me, I believe,” Cara said, turning back to him and extending her hand.
“I do.” Vaelin took the scroll from his pocket and handed it to her. “Word flies quickly, it seems.”
“And gossip flies quickest of all, especially when one’s husband takes up with a slattern.”
Vaelin concealed a wince at the hard edge of bitterness in her tone, watching her unfurl the scroll and give a satisfied nod upon surveying the contents.
“So, I find myself a spinster by order of the Tower Lord,” she said with forced humour.
“I was assured you would have no objection. If that’s not the case . . .”
“Oh no.” She rolled the scroll into a tight cylinder and consigned it to the inside of her shawl. “I certainly have no objection. You pressed him into the North Guard. I’ll wager he hated that. The prospect of war was almost as likely to make him take to his heels as the prospect of chores. Still, can’t say I relish the memory of it much either.” She turned, inclining her head at the schoolhouse. “Come, I’ve got stew on the boil. Won’t have it said the Tower Lord went away from my door with an empty belly.”
“I’ll eat with you,” he said. “And gladly. But I have other business first.” He directed his gaze to the stretch of beach beyond Nortah’s abandoned house. He could make out the dark huddle of a hut amidst the dunes, although there was no sign of smoke from the chimney. “Is he . . . ?”
“Still there, don’t worry,” Cara assured him, exasperation in her voice. “I keep telling him to move in with me, but he won’t. Says he likes the quiet.” She started back to the schoolhouse, speaking over her shoulder. “See if you can get him to come and eat with us, will you?”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
He found Erlin hunched over a book on his porch, apparently deaf to the scrape of Vaelin’s boots on the